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  Synergy/Framework Methodologies

Synergy/Framework consists of an extensive knowledgebase of best practices that can give organizations a jump start in their efforts to build and manage their own Process Asset Library. Synergy/Framework takes into account many of the current as well as evolving industry standards and guidelines such as Project Management Institute’s PMBOK, Software Engineering Institute’s CMM/CMMI as well as guidelines contained in PRINCE - the defacto Project Management standard in Europe. Please visit our Products section to see how automation can help you accelerate your process improvement efforts and ease compliance.

Synergy/Framework consists of methodologies and reference information that covers Project Management methodology as well as IT development methodology paths. Each methodology contains everything you need to be successful - concise task descriptions, clearly defined roles and responsibilities, deliverable descriptions, templates and examples. Many times it is necessary to focus on a specific area of improvement or a “pain point” first. CMD recognizes this reality and has designed a number of “Practice Area” processes that cover many Management and Control processes.  See our section on Practice Areas.

At the heart of Synergy/Framework is its ability to introduce a new common methodology framework to your project teams, while readily assimilating the important standards and best practices already in use by your organization. This power of reusability not only fosters standardized approaches but ensures that organizations can now have visibility and control over all processes in projects. Process improvement and feedback are built into the project approaches. Using standardized processes also ensures that the dashboards and balance scorecards designed by the PMO represent reality and are not mixing “apples and oranges”.

Synergy/Framework is supported by CMD’s training and consulting services. Our process management products, Synergy and CMD Symphony, make these lifecycles available on-line and provide a comprehensive environment where project staff can track all their work including problems, issues, change requests, results of quality reviews, deliverables and individual assignments. Please visit the pages for each of these products to determine which one is right for your organization.

Synergy/Framework’s level of detail is designed to give enough information to accomplish task objectives without becoming intimidating. Methodology is not designed to be a replacement for technical learning. Our experience has shown us that the level of detail should be such that an organization can quickly adapt it to their requirements by either using it straight “out of the box” and then adapting/customizing it as pilot projects proceed or be able to add their specific processes and standards quickly.

CMD Project Management Methodology

The challenge that organizations face is integrating Project Management tasks with the development or technical tasks of a project. Project Management seems to be a continuous stream of tasks that must be performed from concept through delivery. So should these tasks be separate from the project as an oversight set of tasks? Should these be integrated with the development tasks? If so, how? What are the roles and responsibilities of the development team? What are the interfaces to PM team? After working on many projects we have defined a practical set of PM tasks that conform to the industry standards but are designed to be “actionable” within the project framework. Merging the PM tasks with development tasks is made easy with our Synergy and CMD Symphony products.

Project Training
Core PM Lifecycle
This methodology covers all the phases of project management from requesting/proposing a project through its initiation, planning, execution, control, deployment and closeout stages. Each task is clearly defined with roles and responsibilities. All major deliverables are covered including: Kickoff Agendas, Business Case, Project Charter, Scope, Communication and Risk Plans, training plans, etc. The methodology tasks are designed to allow organizations to select the tasks from this standard PM Lifecycle and wrap them around technical tasks to ensure full coverage of both project management and technical development. This methodology is designed to be used on any project and is not restricted to only Information Technology projects.
Synergy/Framework Methods
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Project Management
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Software Development Lifecycles

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Enhancement and Maintenance
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Project and Process Implementation
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Practice Areas
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Six Sigma

Have your previous attempts to introduce methodologies been less than successful?

 

Often organizations buy large methodologies from vendors with the expectation that since these are “industry best practices” they will be accepted by their organization. This is followed by a “cultural” change expectation. What is wrong with these expectations? They don’t address two factors we have learned over 15 years:

*  Ease of Accessibility – methods, documents, & roles and responsibilities must be available and visible with tasks and assignments. If users have to click twice to navigate to find content, you will see a dramatic reduction in use.

*  Relevance – methods must reflect the realities of the project and organization and not be generic or voluminous. The Project Manager must be able to easily customize the content to give clear project related guidance where necessary.

 Benefits CMD Products Bring

*  Increased Productivity

*  Easy to build knowledgebase of best practices from successful projects

*  Meet organizational or other standards: CMM, ISO, Six Sigma, PMI’s - PMBOK

*  Easy to provide task specific guidance to all Project Staff

CMD Products based Methodologies actually get used!!

 

 CMD Full Lifecycle Software Development Methodologies
Project Training
Standard Development Baseline

This development path supports the creation of large applications. It is a complete, concise methodology - containing all of the definitions, topics, roles and responsibilities and deliverables needed for success. The Strategic Visioning phase creates key architectures that are used in the succeeding Analysis and Architecture, Design and Construction phases - and are implemented in the Transition and Production Phases.
Project Training
Client Server Design
Client/Server architectures require special considerations for proper distribution of data and processes. This path utilizes event based modeling techniques and covers distributed architecture considerations.

Project Training
Client Server Development (Object Oriented)
This full-life-cycle methodology utilizes object-oriented development methods and techniques and is target at distributed applications development.
Project Training
Component Based Development
This development path utilizes staged analysis/design/construction techniques to deliver incremental system functionality. Each stage delivers usable application components. Early stages are used to resolve technical issues and refine architectures to ensure success and reusability in remaining phases.
Project Training
Rapid Application Development
This development path applies proven group facilitation and prototyping techniques to gather requirements and produce a high quality system in a fast development environment.  RAD is extremely useful in situations where project scope is well known and tight deadlines must be met. RAD is delivered as a full methodology - complete with all information about each technique utilized.
Project Training
Internet Applications Design
Web-enabled architectures involve careful attention to architecture, deployment and security implications. This path utilizes UML modeling techniques and covers web architecture considerations.
Project Training
Purchased Package Acquisition and Adaptation
This path covers all aspects of Acquisition and Adaptation of a Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) package. It includes considerations for integrating data and process models of COTS with existing application models.
Project Training
Small Systems Development
Every organization is faced with dozens of small, short-cycle application development projects. The Small Systems path contains tasks to manage the issues inherent in these projects and integrate the new system into an overall architecture.
Project Training
Decision Support Systems Development
Decision support systems and data warehousing frameworks supply businesses with consistent historical information for strategic and long-term business planning.  This path includes datamart, data warehouse, operational data store, and metadata repository architectures.

 CMD Enhancement and Maintenance Methodologies
Project Training
Legacy Systems Enhancement
The decision to enhance, rebuild or refurbish existing application systems requires thorough analysis and planning - and Legacy Systems Enhancement solves this problem.  These methods develop a broad view of an enterprise’s enhancement requirements in light of its information processing position,  and then prescribe a disciplined approach for the prioritization, consolidation, development, testing and deployment of legacy systems enhancements. As these methods are applied, a systematic set of documentation and models is produced to provide a valuable on-going documentation library describing an organization’s information technology framework.
Project Training
Systems Maintenance
This lifecycle deals primarily with the identification and resolution of routine change requests and identified errors in legacy information systems, but has processes that allow for proper prioritizing, testing and putting the software in production.

Emphasis is placed on the often-overlooked tasks to justify, plan, and coordinate the activities of a maintenance organization.

 CMD Process and Project Implementation Methodologies
Project Training
Microsoft Project 2003 EPM Deployment
This is a customizable framework designed to help organizations install, test, and gradually rollout Microsoft Project 2003 EPM in their environment. The methodology has built in accelerated approaches to installing and getting past the “proof of concept” stage for the EPM technologies. We have included processes from our Core PM Lifecycle to ensure that the deployment project is treated in the same manner as any other project. For organizations that want to also include the process management component, we have added the processes from our Process Implementation Planning methods. The deployment of an enterprise solution like the Microsoft Project EPM requires not only technical implementation but also aspects of cultural change, establishment of policies and procedures and management of expectations. CMD brings all these into a concise methodology and plan supported by our full education and training curriculum for Microsoft Project 2003. This methodology is designed for our consulting staff to follow during an implementation. Once the pilot projects have completed and roll-out process has started, organizations can continue to use this methodology with only spot assistance from CMD. In addition to standard PM deliverables, many specific documents are produced to assist the organization in maintaining their Project EPM environment. These include EPM Requirements document and Project Server Configuration document.
Project Training
Process Implementation Planning
This is a customizable framework that is designed to help organizations set up a process and program management environment in your organization that leverages the use of Synergy or CMD Symphony products. It is designed to ensure that management expectations and plans for roll-out including institutionalization of process management are properly managed. Its step by step processes include creation of an internal communications plan, an organization skills development plan, and setting up of standards, policies and procedures. It also includes tasks for customization and building of methodology libraries that are important to your organization. Methodologies, policies and procedures are tested through a few initial projects before a full roll-out. This methodology the need of organizations that have already set up a project management environment and are now looking at adding methods and a process management environment.
Project Training
Process Implementation Planning for CMM Level 2
This methodology is a implementation plan specifically targeted to implementing the processes and policies associated with the key process areas prescribed for SW-CMM Level 2 certification.
Project Training
Process Implementation Planning for CMM Level 3
This methodology is a implementation plan specifically targeted to implementing the processes and policies associated with the key process areas prescribed for SW-CMM Level 3 certification.

 CMD Practice Areas

There are many viable approaches to introducing methodology usage in an organization. Many times it is necessary to focus on a specific area of improvement or a “pain point” first. CMD recognizes this reality and has designed a number of “Practice Area” processes that cover many Management and Control processes.  Each Practice Area represents a workflow of activities associated with that practice.  For example, the Risk Assessment and Management practice area is a control practice area that participates in all development phases.  It describes the actual workflow involved in the identification, quantification and management of risks associated with the development process.

Project Training

Management practices are those practices necessary for the orchestration of the entire product line effort.

  • Business Case Development and Cost Benefit Analysis

  • Business Area Scoping

  • Deployment 

Project Training

Control practices are those management practices necessary to engineer the creation and evolution of the core assets and the products.

  • Project Planning, Scheduling and Tracking

  • Current Environment Assessment

  • Project Coordination

  • Risk Assessment and Management

  • Package Software Evaluation, Selection and Acquisition

  • Package Software Adaptation

  • Application Systems Testing

For more information, please contact us.

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